sectoral economic costs and benefits of ghg mitigation - IPCC

Households and Services
it is based. The second point needs to be addressed using both bottom-up and top-down
approaches and that is the issue of cross-sectoral impacts. For example, changing the relative cost
of fuels in order to change consumer behaviour in one sector could have unanticipated effects in
the household and informal sectors. An increase in the price of coal-fired electricity to persuade
industries to switch to gas could induce poorer households to shift to unsustainable biomass use.
Another area where unexpected changes could be seen would be in transport modes. The
possibility for large and unanticipated impacts suggests that the ancilliary costs and benefits of
mitigation options need to be carefully considered. The discussion below only considers
mitigation options implemented within the specified sector and its associated costs and benefits
to that same sector.
Mitigation in the Residential Sector
Shackleton et al., (1996) provide some examples of demand side measures that could be
implemented in households, such as the implementation of energy efficient appliances and
buildings as well as transitions in the energy ladder. These have been somewhat expanded on
during the course of the Mitigation component of the South African Country Study. de Villiers
and Matibe (a, in draft) have considered several options (detailed below) although comments on
the study assumptions are still awaited from stakeholders.
• Replacement of incandescents.
• Efficient lighting practices.
• Efficient wood/coal stoves.
• A shift from hot plate to gas cooking.
• Hybrid solar water heaters.
• Solar water heaters.
• Heat pumps for hot water.
• Insulation of geysers.
• Efficient use of hot water.
• Thermally efficient housing.
• A move from electric to gas space heating.
• Appliance labeling and standards.
• Solar home systems.
• Distributed wind generation.
• A shift from cooking with paraffin to cooking with gas.
Of these options (given the assumptions made about penetration of the technology, cost of the
technology and fuel prices) it was found that the emissions reduction associated with eight of the
options could be achieved at a negative cost. Costs ranged from –R121/ton up to R723/ton and
the potential for emissions to be reduced by the individual options ranged from 0 to 88 million
tons per option. If the options had been additive (which they are not) a total reduction of 250
million tons of CO 2 equivalent would be possible from the residential sector over the next 30
years. This amounts to about 67% of South Africa’s emissions in 1990.
In their analysis, de Villiers and Matibe (a, in draft) considered the capital engineering costs,
operating and maintenance costs and (where necessary) programme implementation costs.
Programme implementation costs were estimated, as no South African data was available. It is
the opinion of the author that these costs are underestimated.
Mitigation options were also evaluated with respect to other criteria, such as local environmental,
social and macroeconomic impacts. de Villiers and Matibe (a, in draft) considered that most of
the mitigation options would have a benefit in terms of reducing local air pollution, poverty
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